[ lips ] sender caresses receiver's lips with their fingertip.
their truce has been extended since that night in rivington. the mutual decision, their shared effort, has never been voiced aloud or so much as acknowledged, but arlis does not doubt that this stalemate is felt. her attention is divided so many ways already, split and scattered and demanded until there is nothing left in reserve, that she's grateful for it.
things are simpler when they're not at each other's throats, both figuratively and literally in that way only they can manage.
it's become something of a routine, their conversations in the early hours of the morning when most of her companions have yet to stir. his mind keeps him from his rest, her body from her own. tonight, they've lapsed into a shared, comfortable silence before the inn's hearth. tonight, it's easy enough that it almost reminds her of all those years ago, all those nights spent plotting in his office over the affairs of the lower city, this gang and that guild and some alley. it all seems so painfully insignificant now that the world will be shaped by one of them.
but not both, never both. there is no ending in which they endure together. worlds are not meant to be shared: it will only be one of them at the end.
she's pulled from her somber thoughts by the recognition that enver is staring very intently at her, dark gaze gleaming against the dying fire before them. she leans forward to stir the embers before arching a brow.
"something on your mind?"
he huffs a breath somewhere between amusement and annoyance in response, but his gaze does not shift. her other brow arches as she adjusts the blanket over her lap.
"you're peering, enver."
his hand lifts unexpectedly and moves towards her cheek. she thinks of moonrise, of the chill of that terrible gauntlet against her skin, but this time his fingers pause just they reach her. once the initial confusion passes, arlis realizes he is asking for permission. (another recognition, she did not flinch. not this time.)
slowly, cautiously, she leans forward into his outstretched palm. he looks her over in the dying firelight, tracing each of her features carefully with his gaze, but there is something different in his eyes than at the towers. she had felt a bruised sum of tattered parts then, frayed and lacking. it had been easy to recognize the cruel bemusement, that harsh curiosity when he'd taken in the dark shadows beneath her eyes and the pallor of her skin. now? she isn't certain what she senses in him now, except he touches her with a care she hadn't thought him capable of.
"it's gone from you, all that shadow. not even a trace left." his voice is a murmur. she thinks she detects the faint sheen of admiration. "death didn't suit you, arlis."
but his hand does not retreat from her, nor does she retreat from his hand.
they're still and they are close enough now that she can smell the leather and oak imbuing his clothes, the warmth of coriander intermingled. she is afraid to breathe, afraid to move lest this strange, delicate thing shared between them be shattered. after all, it occurs to arlis that she does not want it to end.
finally, enver's thumb travels feather-light down the slope of her cheek to the corner of her mouth. she can feel the callouses lining his thumb, rough against delicate lip, but then he moves it so carefully, so gently that her breath hitches in her throat. her eyes flutter shut and she leans forward into his touch. she had always known him to be capable of precision, but this? this is tenderness and tenderness requires more.
his thumb falters, all but trembles when he reaches the bow of her lips, however, and her eyes open once more. for the first time she can remember, he looks uncertain. has his hand forgotten what gentleness feels like, must it relearn after all that cruelty? has it atrophied after all this time, the reflex to touch another kindly?
her fingers lift to reach softly around his wrist not to hold him in place, but rather to steady him, to serve as an anchor. it serves as more than permission. it's offered as a request.
their gazes lock and enver exhales harshly. one final moment's pause, one last chance for them both to turn from what can only spell disaster, abandon this portent that has her pulse quicken behind the cage of her ribs, but then his thumb moves once more and her grip remains.
no matter, some distant part of her thinks, they've both always had a particular talent for escaping fate.
